Failed rescue attempt at Moon River Falls

By the time we heard him calling for help it was too late, but we went anyway. We had made the decision to try to head up to Moon River Falls for Canada Day like we had for the last two years. Lake Muskoka feeds the river and the flow is controlled in Bala by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ontario Hydro. Three years ago, it was calm enough to swim underneath the main falls. This year however was a completely different story (shown below). The water proceeds towards a wide cascading waterfall that was easily crossed on foot. After the cascading falls, the river opens up and is calm enough to swim around and paddle around before it feeds to another choke point. When we showed up this year, we could hear the waterfall before we could see it as we paddled upstream from Moon Basin Marina. I expected it to be rough, but when I saw the falls from about 200 metres, the violence of the water took away any ambition I had to go anywhere near it.